These delicious salty-sweet squares are a wonderful hybrid of dark chocolate brownies and peanut butter candy. They are studded throughout with roasted salted peanuts which give them texture and crunch. The hardest part about this recipe? Waiting for the bars to cool so you can slice and eat them!
If you’re an avid baker, you probably have all of the ingredients already in your pantry!
The brownie layer is prepared first, and then a heaping helping of peanuts is folded in the batter.
The brownie batter goes in a 13×9 foil-lined pan. The mixture will be thick, so just spread it as best as you can in the bottom of the pan. If it’s not perfectly even, that’s no biggie.
Next, the peanut butter layer is prepared. I used crunchy peanut butter, but if you don’t have crunchy then smooth will also work.
The peanut butter layer will be very sticky, so I recommend spooning in on top of the brownie layer in dollops. Smooth it as best as you can – again, perfection is not needed here. The peanut butter candy layer gets topped with even more salty peanuts!
As the bars bake, the peanut butter layer will puff up and then sink down after it’s taken out of the oven. Cool the bars completely before cutting them. I’d even suggest chilling them in the refrigerator for an hour before slicing. Bring them to room temperature before serving.
These will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days (if they last that long!).
I developed this recipe for the American Butter Institute, and the recipe lives on their website Go Bold With Butter. CLICK HERE for the printable recipe.
YUM! These bars look delicious and so easy to make. Perfect for Christmas – will definitely try them soon ♥
Who doesn’t love peanut butter and chocolate together?! Yum!